Increase HDL
HDL is beneficial because its purpose is to remove other types of cholesterol from your bloodstream, says Claire Sullivan, MD, a cardiologist with UH Harrington Heart and Vascular Institute. It does this by carrying unhealthy LDL cholesterol away from the arteries and to the liver, where it can be broken down and removed from the body.
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If all other methods of increasing your HDL cholesterol haven't been effective, you might think of taking dietary supplements. Still, Ahmed cautions that supplements aimed at raising HDL only do so modestly. Also, supplements have not yet been proven to reduce heart attacks or strokes.
HDL cholesterol carries excess cholesterol to your liver so it doesn't build up in your bloodstream. But when LDL cholesterol moves cholesterol throughout your body, it can build up in the walls of the arteries, making them hard and narrow. If you have too little HDL cholesterol and too much LDL, you may be diagnosed with high cholesterol, a condition that can lead to atherosclerosis, angina (often experienced as chest pain), heart attack, and stroke.
Low HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) levels are a strong predictor of cardiovascular disease risk and can be improved with regular exercise. However, raising HDL-C levels pharmacologically has not shown convincing clinical benefits. Thus, research has recently focused on identifying therapies that improve HDL function, with exercise representing such a potential therapy. The purpose of this review is to summarize the effects of exercise interventions on HDL function.
The Mediterranean diet can be a good place to start. A 2020 study showed that, in people with risk factors for metabolic disease, following the Mediterranean diet effectively lowered overall blood cholesterol.
To further complicate matters, different HDL types do more than just carry cholesterol. Some protect LDL from being chemically altered by oxygen, a change that makes LDL extra harmful to artery walls. Under some circumstances, though, they can do just the opposite. Various HDL particles can ease inflammation in artery walls, stimulate production of nitric oxide, a molecule that helps artery walls relax, and help prevent blood clots from forming inside arteries.
Stop Smoking to Optimize HDL CholesterolAlamySmoking cigarettes can lead to a number of health problems, including lung disease and cancer, and also increases your risk of heart attack. But did you know smoking can also suppress or lower those good cholesterol levels?"Smoking can reduce HDL cholesterol in many ways, including by inhibiting HDL synthesis in the first place, blocking its maturation, and speeding up its clearance and metabolism," Dr. Ahmed says. "Quitting smoking can help your HDL synthesis and metabolism to go back to their natural levels so that the HDL can do its job better again."And research agrees. A study published in September 2013 in the journal Biomarker Research found that ex-smokers had higher HDL cholesterol than smokers, noting: "We conclude that quitting smoking increases HDL cholesterol, and that this increase occurs rapidly after quitting, with no clear pattern of change thereafter."If you're trying to quit smoking, talk to your doctor about the many methods to help you through the process.
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